I like every single conservative on the planet oppose the Welfare State but I come at it from a more visceral, more personal angle. Sure I oppose folks sitting on their duff getting a check for the usual reasons, fosters dependence on government yada yada yada but where I differ from most conservatives is when they say work automatically ennobles a person. Occasionally yes but more often no, let's face it work sucks for most of us so the main reason I oppose welfare is if I have to suffer then so do you pal. Not exactly high Newt Gingrich philosophy, won't make the GOP platform but there you have it. I oppose the beatnik philosophy of getting up whenever the hell you want to and doing whatever for the rest of the day because I can't do it. My brand of conservatism is you could say off-kilter, it goes all the way back to the Id. The Id has a few things to say about race too but I'll leave that for another day, well no let's do it here. Folks who are racist are that way because of black crime, not like they wake up one morning and decide to become a bigot. Obama bending over for the Japanese Emperor on his Asian trip, now this Emperor had a father once who was also Emperor by the name of Hirohito I believe who okay'd the attack on our sleeping soldiers at Pearl Harbor. Now I GET the criticism that we conservatives are just looking for stuff, the guy can't do anything right (your basic Shaw Kenawe position) but he's making it too easy. It's times like these when I believe you should be allowed to say without a peep from Keith Olbermann or Bill Moyers the guy's a FUCKING ASSHOLE!
I can't believe I'm living.
People who work do so because they have to, yes, but there actually can be people who love their job or the people they work for or with. You and I are not among them. However, they do exist.
ReplyDeleteHow some think they do not need to work but deserve to be taken care of, I do not understand. Actions have consequences, and non-actions also have consequences.
Rewarding inaction is going to only encourage more inaction.
NO AMERICAN IS SUPPOSED TO bow TO ANYONE! NO ONE.. He is a disgrace as a president. We fought a war so we could be free and NOT have to bow down to royalty EVER again. NEVER! American presidents bows to no one. So don’t you Liberal asswipes give us that BS about Bush, it’s always about Bush isn’t it! Did Dick Cheney BOW to the Emperor of Japan when he was there? NO, he shook hands. But you didn’t post that picture did you!
ReplyDeleteWhy do you libs always have to rush to this creeps defense every time he screws up?
In fact NO Head of State is supposed to bow to another! Remember when Barack Obama bowed before the King of Saudi Arabia at the G-20 summit in London last April? Even though the bow was captured by still and video photographers, the White House denied that it had taken place. "It wasn't a bow," But it WAS a bow, as was this one. . I lived in Japan for about 9 months and in all my time there I never saw a grown man bow so deeply to another man as we see in the Obama-Akihito photo and I also never saw such an one-sided gesture (one party bowing deeply and the other not at all). Then again, I never saw anything but Japanese subjects bowing before the deity. In essence, then, this Obama bow before the Emperor is likened to a subject bowing before a god. Any way you try to spin that, it's not good for America's image abroad. I don't care how much Obama wants to "repair" our so-called tainted image. How long must we endure this disgrace posing as the U.S. President? Ane why does Obama have to wear a Muslim tunic or a MAO outfit? I for one am disgusted by these pathetic displays every time he goes out of the country. I guess this is the “Change” he was talking about!
Or maybe he mistook the Emperor for George Soros.
Well at least he didn't give the Emperor a fist bump or a highfive, or ever worse a chest bump.
When I think of conservatism I think of conserving of what exactly?? Well for me it's individual liberty and individual freedom in the life. Not merely existence as a noun but rather as a verb; the action if you will. I'm not a fan of things that restrict my natural tendency, course or direction. Pointed out an interesting fact to our old buddy Daniel @ Right Minds once about Life and Liberty not being mutually exclusive but instead mutually inclusive (ya know like ya can't have one without the other). He said something about if that were the case then people in Cuba would be much less alive than here in the US. I thought it rather odd because in fact they are very much less alive. That is precisely why they risk death crossing the ocean to come to America. Without liberty and freedom life is meaningless.
ReplyDeleteAs for any enobbling effect from productive work, I happen to think of it as having that effect. Of course not all the time but there certainly is something at least gratifying about cleaning out the garage or unloading the dishwasher.
Obama's bowing episode I won't get into. It's just more trivial BS from the opposition crowd. I'm told Nixon did a similar thing back in the day. I don't think of it so much as an apologetic sort of thing as it was just an everyday sort of gaffe. Besides, if as a nation our goal is to not come off as this holier than thou do whatever the hell we want sort of Nation, we're going to have to make a concerted effort to show some level of respect to those we wish to have dealings with.
I'd rather stick to policy differencies. Certainly there's no shortage there. I see no need for us to get into his teleprompter, dog selection, golf outings, etc.
Lastly, Olberman is a fucking douche okay.
Here's a guy who got his start in sports (still does sports I'm told) and yet the man can't bring the whole individual achievement thing in the sports domain into his political ideology.
It's not like if Brett Favre throws for 400 yards and 6 touchdowns that he knocks it down to 225 and 3 touchdowns thus giving the excess to the opposing team in a spirit of fairness.
What an imbecile.
soapie's comments first: "I'm not a fan of things that restrict my natural tendency, course or direction."
ReplyDeleteThis is why I have mixed feelings about cops and law enforcement in general. I respect their work enormously, more so than say Al Sharpton. You would call a cop in an emergency, when there's a crime committed etc. and they put their life on the line but he also represents the power of the State, he's an authority figure and often has to enforce laws that maybe shouldn't even be on the books in the first place. So this is at the root of my libertarian-leaning conservatism as remember this is a visceral thread about most often unacknowledged forces shaping our conservatism and I'm being honest here. Cops make me and many other people nervous (e.g. the cop driving behind you, will he abuse his power?). I was at my nephew's birthday party last Saturday and my bro is friends with a correction officer so naturally he takes law enforcement's side and so several guests got into a debate with him about some recent police incidents in the news involving citizens and there was a strong undercurrent of not fully trusting cops so it's not just me. Now the social conservatives pretty much take the cop's side in any controversial case, hit the nigger on the head and they'll come up with an excuse. As I've said the cop is an authority figure as how could he not be but this can lead to authoritarianism or an authoritarian state and that's my concern (e.g. numerous cases in the past of police brutality against peaceful pro-life picketers in many locales).
Beth you know my feelings about work my point is just that Republicans tend to overinflate the enjoyment and dignity of work when for far too many people it's neither. The main force driving my conservatism on welfare is if I have to work then so do you and you will note I said nothing about it being pleasant or even life-affirming it's simply we're all in the same boat or should be. Agree 100% with Malcontent but for me my main issue with Obama's bow was that the Emperor's father gave the go-ahead to the attack on Pearl Harbor so for me it's more important than it is for soapie. Didn't even have to meet with the guy imo.
ReplyDeleteZ, if you'd have been here to witness the 2008 Republican Nation Convention and the crusading stormtroopers first hand, you'd have not a single reservation about your distrust.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't let anyone kid you into believeing that it was only the unruly ones that were subjected to the abuse of power and authority.
I can respect your take on the bow Z I just think it was pure idiocy. It's no different than when Bush gave Merkel a rubdown.
ReplyDeleteAgain if it weren't for Pearl Harbor it probably wouldn't even merit a comment from me. I did hear about the goings-on at the RNConvention in '08 and again it's your social conservative types who defended the cops not your libertarian sorts like you and me. You don't hear of Dick Armey much anymore but he fits the mold of what I'm talking about here, concern with civil liberty stuff, invasions of privacy etc. If only more conservatives were like him.
ReplyDelete"individual liberty and individual freedom in the life"
ReplyDeleteNow I've a visceral dislike for feminism, again the reasons are primeval and it's like this. When earlier feminists were concerned with things like pay equity, suffrage and all the other things you can't argue against, not a rational person anyway an earlier z if he were born in that era would have had no problem with this. I highlighted your phrase above because it's a root passion of ours, it's primeval and so when latter-day feminism became concerned with the dirty joke in the workplace, when we later learned that Clarence Thomas may have had a penchant for pornography your liberty and freedom clause starts kicking in as when a guy at work now can only ask a woman out once. So how did we drift from this to this? Freedom and liberty, you have to be pretty hardcore about it, there really is no other way.
Hardcore about it indeed. That's why I differ with a great many of my more socially conservative brethren. It goes back to that whole life and liberty as being mutually inclusive thing.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's exactly why I don't agree with their assessment that a woman who is sexually assaulted and ends up pregnant should be made to bear the burden of pregnancy.
If we care one iota about individual liberty, we know that there exists no moral justification for a right to life if in so asserting it we stifle the liberty or freewill of another individual.
Of course all to often they want nothing to do with any such discussion and so they default to asserting that the rape/abortion statistics are so low.
But what I don't like about your rank-and-file pro-choicer is they present abortion as a positive social good instead of framing the issue as the freedom to make mistakes. Another thing they could do which they don't is assert in no uncertain terms that our covenant or compact with the pro-life crowd is to give them as much latitude as possible to protest the act and to try to talk women out of it etc. etc. In short stop trying to present abortion as so hunky-dory or as Charles Krauthammer says if abortion is to remain legal (and he believes it should) at least don't get rid of the negative social stigma attached to it.
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